


Islanded in a Stream of Stars

by labonnemon



Category: Hook (1991), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan (2003), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1475632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labonnemon/pseuds/labonnemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Pan left Hook to die twice, when James Hook did no more than love him. What happens when the opportunity arises for one final act of vengeance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Islanded in a Stream of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> The working title of this story is borrowed from an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

They were high in Peter's favorite tree, an old, creaking thing with a trunk as wide as the gathering tent in Tiger Lilly's village. Peter stood at the edge of their makeshift platform, leaning over, an act that had lost all threat upon his discovery that he no longer needed faerie dust to fly. It was a dark night, the stars seemed very pale and far away, and James was hidden in shadow, staring at the long lines of Peter's body from across the planks.

Peter turned and caught his stare. A small smirk turned up the right corner of his mouth and he strode over to James, grabbing his right hand and pulling him to stand. James was up on his feet and then their bodies collided, chest to chest and hip to hip. As if seeing something strange and new, Peter left one hand gripping James by the arm, but the other came up to his friend's face. His fingers touched James' cheek, ghosted along his jaw. James forgot all worry about the black stubble he had so frantically shaved away only an hour before, and leaned his face into Peter's touch. Peter seemed to have lost himself entirely, and he could only whisper the words to James, a frightened question in stuttered breath.

“Jas, do you remember what love is? Do you remember what it feels like?”

James said nothing, too afraid to break the spell. Peter never, ever mentioned feeling things from before, from real life. He had not once described an emotion or memory, only talked about things he felt on this island where he led an army of boys and wore shirts and breeches made from leather and woven leaves.

“Jas, sometimes I get this squeezing in my chest,” he continued, his hand wandering and brushing open the collar of James' shirt. “I feel it right here, and it gets so that I can barely breathe.” His breath started to come harder and he tried to pull away but James snatched his hand back and returned it to his chest, to that place over his heart that Peter's touch had set ablaze, where his friend could feel the pounding rhythm. He took Peter's other hand and placed it around on the small of his back, brought his own hands into Peter's crown of soft bronze hair and pulled him closer.

“Don't be frightened, Peter. I feel it, too...”

He took a tiny moment to breathe, he was so scared, and then he brought his mouth down to Peter's lips and gave him a light kiss, almost chaste. Quickly, he moved his mouth to Peter's throat, then his cheek, moving gently, not wanting to frighten his dear friend in this moment. James had been waiting so long and Peter stood still for him, the hand on James' back starting to twitch, the fingers curling and digging into his skin, bunching up the fabric of his shirt. James kissed Peter's ear and sucked in a breath when Peter brought both hands around and jerked their bodies closer together, even as he shivered like a trapped animal in the embrace.

James leaned his head back to look at his friend's confusion, wanting to speak lest he lose this chance forever. “I remember love, Peter. I feel it every time I look at you.”

He gripped Peter's chin to tilt it up ( _oh, how am I already taller than he_ ), and what he saw in Peter's eyes made the next kiss frantic, lips parting and their teeth clashing, neither of them quite knew what to do but neither did they care. James tasted blood, his or Peter's, he wasn't sure, but it made him want more. His hands tore the green linen shirt from Peter's breeches, finding his body, feeling his skin covered with sweat. As if coming out of a trance, Peter finally tried to pull away, pushing at James' chest, but James was growing into something stronger ( _a man, a man, I can't fight it much longer_ ), and his thought to fly must have left him, for when James twisted Peter's arm around and pinned him against the worn trunk of their tree, the golden boy stopped fighting. Instead he drew James close again, silent but for what his body said. They found their way to the floor, all frenzied touches and torn hems, James never even got his boots off and the stars seemed to make themselves even dimmer, hiding this love that had come in a night of shadow.

 

.*.*.*

 

Captain James Hook gazed out over the ocean that bled into the stars. His wrist ached where the hook fitted over it, as it always did these days. It got worse when one of the snowstorms caught a random breeze and drifted from the mountains and into the bay. He found his hand curling around the hook and tugging, not enough to pull it off, but gently, creating a tingling sensation that felt slightly better than his rheumatic discomfort. It was like picking a scab – he knew that his tugging only made the ache worse when it returned, but it was a cycle he didn't mind repeating. Smee cracked his knuckles constantly, only to find a few hours later that they ached more than they had before, only to crack them again, et cetera.

The stars shone especially bright this evening, and James wondered if that was because of the young woman lying asleep in the canopied bed. He wondered if Peter had broken out of his shackles, those folders and names and telephones that kept him bound to earth, to the foggy city of London. Did he know yet that Tinkerbell had spirited away young Margaret, flown her across the sky in a deep sleep and into the domain of one Captain Hook? He knew that the Pan would arrive in time. He just had to be patient.

The Captain realized that he had found his way over to the bed, gazing at the sleeping Maggie. He could see Peter in her face, that shape of her lips and the high cheekbones, her long hair in waves of the same golden bronze. He wondered if she looked at all like her mother, if her mother in turn resembled Wendy at such an age. James knew that Wendy had aged and died by now, that Peter had returned to the streets and rain of London to take her place at the hospital, but he could no longer remember what the woman had looked like during her time in Neverland.

As he watched the girl's enchanted sleep, James finally admitted to himself that he wasn't quite sure what he was doing. His death had been in Peter's hands twice now, and each time he had scraped out and survived. He felt so old, and incredibly alone. Smee was as steady and sycophantic a counsellor as ever, and most of his crew had stopped making signs against black magic when he passed; but none of it ever filled that void where he had once held his love for Peter Pan. That empty place was as hard as the scarred wreck of his arm under the hook, it was stitched up and ugly to behold. Whatever had been left of the young man had faded, fallen away, shorn off with each of those frustrating stokes over his beard in that long-ago time. Gods, was he tired.

Even as he looked at the young woman, the fire of hate that he had hoped to feed was no more than an ember, a remnant. It was just a shadow of something, a lie he force-fed himself instead of the love he had desired. He had hoped to fan it hot enough to consume him, to burn him out of the world forever. Pan was young no longer, they had both grown old, he and the boy he had loved and fiercely admired, that he had served with his entire heart. Perhaps it had been that love that destroyed his eternal youth; that kind of love grew in the hearts of men and women, not the hearts of children. It was a thing that nobody on this star-stranded island felt anymore, an absence that led them to stop the elder growth of their minds, and then their bodies. It was just as complicit in the constant ages of his pirate crew – they had all forgotten love and thus remained however old they were when it had left them.

Maggie shifted, her head turning, her neck long and pale, her body slim underneath her shift. She could not be much older than James had been that night in the tree with her father, that first and last time he had felt his heart and body on fire as one. He sat himself gently upon the edge of the bed, his fingers finding their way into her long hair, brushing it back from her face. She was quite beautiful.

Suddenly, amidst a small series of cursing yelps from Smee, the Tinkerbell arrived in all her vengeful glory. Her hair had grown out, her features were more chiseled, she no longer looked like the kind of creature that a boy would want to hunt and fight with; she looked more like the kind of woman a man would want to lie with. Yet the small problem of her size overpowered her appeal, and it never failed to give James a petty chuckle.

After the faerie finished tormenting Smee, she flitted over to James and landed silently on the bedclothes next to his knee. She gave Maggie a fleeting glance, then turned her attention to the Captain.

“How long do you propose to let her sleep? When will the Pan be returning?” Her thin arms crossed her chest, the worn leather of her jerkin so tanned that it matched her skin. Her hair was unkempt and windblown, a right mess that looked wild and beautiful. But her voice was cold, and he heard in it a greater intent to harm Peter than James had within himself. No force greater than a woman scorned, especially a little faerie woman.

“I had thought to ask you the same thing, my dear. You placed the spell on her, this slumber is your doing. I expect that Peter will be back here eventually, likely as soon as he remembers how to fly. . . if he has indeed forgotten. Has it been ten years? Twelve? I am no longer sure. . .” He mused himself to silence.

She did not look displeased so much as perplexed at his words.

“Have you never thought of faerie tales beyond your own, Hook? Do you not know of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty? It's a petty trick of mine, to be sure, but surely you know how to wake her?” The winged creature was almost incredulous, and as the seconds ticked by there came a little, wicked smile at the corners of her mouth.

He could only shake his head, he was at a total loss. Had he read anything over these many years? Had he been so lost in melancholy that he either didn't open a book or couldn't remember any that he had?

After a few moments looking at his blank expression, she clapped her hands together and laughed, a small, deceptively sweet sound.

“Oh, my Captain. In all the stories, the only way to waken a slumbering girl is to give the kiss of true love!” She giggled some more, her eyes taking on a slightly mad gleam.

James blinked, cleared his throat. “Kiss her? Why should I want to kiss Peter Pan's daughter? And out of love? I don't even know her . . . I doubt she even remembers me outside of her nightmares.” Hook didn't have much magic, but he could see Peter's dreams, and the dreams of his children. He knew Maggie saw his face in her sleep.

Tinkerbell stopped laughing and sighed. “Oh, James. I know she doesn't love you. But isn't it delicious to know that only you can wake her? Not her mother, not her darling father. Only you. Only your lips. Perhaps then Peter will recall what you felt like on his mouth, hmmm?”

James sighed. He was not very shocked to hear that she knew of that tryst. She had followed the boy everywhere, begging to be thought of as something more than a winged pet. She had loved Peter in her own way, just as James had; far be it for him to rage at her for spying. He spied on the dreams of the Banning family nightly.

“You aren't going to kiss her right now, are you?”

James shook his head. “No. I suppose the strategic thing to do would be to plan it... The right moment for such a kiss as this.” At that, he turned his gaze back to Maggie. He saw Peter in her features again, and was somewhat disturbed to find himself wondering about her body under the covers. Did she have the same strong, lithe form her father had in the days when James had loved to watch him spin and soar? Would she taste like he did . . .

He stood abruptly, knocking Tinkerbell over and ignoring her small sound of indignation. He moved swiftly to the windows of his chamber and looked out at the water, at the crew mingling on the deck below with their flagons of ale. His eyes went everywhere but back to the young woman asleep in the bed.

He felt in himself a strange stirring that he hadn't known since before his days as a pirate, a thing that was not really lust for a body but a need for connection, a need for a link to the world he had left for an adventure he had hoped would be much greater. How wrong he had been. How peaceful to have lived and died in that place. So much softer than to have loved with burning heat for a short while, to have screamed at his body as it grew, to have his mind outpace his lover's and then nearly twice to die under those hands he would rather have kissed.

It had torn him apart, this adventure, and the pirate he became was a lonely statue, an island on this island of men and wenches, natives and mermaids that never aged, never changed, never became anything greater than what had been imagined long ago. Even Peter had left, the boy had found his way back to the world and found in it the real adventure of life, the adventure of love that no longer frightened him. Captain Hook understood now that so much of his pain was rooted in Peter's scorn of the love James had borne him, spurning his devotion only to flit back to the earth and place his heart in the hands of a woman. And not even the Wendy woman, but Wendy's granddaughter.

James' sadness became his anger once more and it was bitter in his mouth. He had felt a fleeting heartbeat for the girl, but what was she to him? The offspring of his heart's curse, and she was here, at his mercy. She would be his tool for that final fight, the demise of both hero and enemy. She was only a means to his end. What matter if he hurt her, stole some of her innocence? Peter had left him for dead twice, left him to damnation in this land of eternal, glorified tedium. It did not matter. She would leave whether her father lived or died, and if all went well, James would be dead and dissolved amongst the stars when she did.

The faerie was flying about the room, her magic sparking in rage. He turned to her as she hovered over the girl, saw the hatred with which she stared down at the bed. He shoved aside his compassion. He strode over to the bed, set himself down again at Maggie's side. He placed his hand at her cheek, turned her face up, his thumb stroked over her lips and down to her chin.

He would lay claim here, this would be his final stroke against the golden boy: James would make Margaret Banning love him as a bride her groom. The faerie was hell-bent on the Pan's destruction as much as he; her assistance was guaranteed. Without taking his eyes off Maggie, he spoke to the Tinkerbell.

“This will be his end. Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Will you assist me in any way I see fit?”

“I will do whatever you ask.”

He nodded. “We have only as much time as it takes Peter to find his way back here. That could be hours, it could be days. No more than a fortnight, I imagine. He learned to fly in three days last time, when you brought him here. It won't take him much longer in London. He will not have forgotten so much, this time.”

“I want to see him destroyed. He left me, abandoned me here just as he did you.”

“This could very well be our end, too. Have you considered that?”

“Yes. We both loved him, once. I know that. Let us end it together.”

He sighed, closing his eyes. Hope for the end was still a thing before its time; he needed a clear head. “So we shall. Go look in on the lost boys. See where their loyalties lie after his second absence.”

He heard her tiny buzzing flight toward the cabin doors, then she was gone.

His hand slid back into Maggie's hair, so soft and thick. He curled his fingers in it and leaned his head down, failing to notice the quiet ripping as his hook sank into the covers beside her. His only thought was of her mouth. When his lips brushed hers in that first moment, he thought he could smell clover and aged bark, she smelled like the sun, like Peter had, and he couldn't stop. He kissed her harder, parted her lips with his tongue and tasted her, he wanted to drink her up, this body so strange yet familiar.

He brought both arms around her back to lift her up, she was stirring, he tore the covers more but didn't care. His hand still held the tender part of her neck where it met her skull and he couldn't stop kissing her. He didn't stop even as she woke, struggling. In seconds she shoved herself back on the point of his hook, he couldn't move it away fast enough, and she cried out in pain. Her voice brought him back to the cabin, to the bed, to this girl that was not his lover. The blankets were torn and she was sobbing, bleeding from a long gash where his hook had dragged across her skin. She looked horrified, scared, and he was overcome with pity, with regret.

He quickly called upon what little magic he knew and spelled her back into sleep, a deep slumber so that he could at least heal her wound and stop her crying.

In the next moment he found his eyes cast out to the sea once more, and he blinked, biting his lips shut so that he might not scream or sob his heart into the dark blue night.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is very much a work in progress. I am not sure how fast this progress will occur. Patience, comments, kudos, and reader love are all inspirations for me. Let me know what you think of this, of where it could go - your input could very well feed this fickle muse I carry within me! Thank you all. xoxo


End file.
